The Dark Knight will screen for select press later this week (we’ll be there), but a scooper over at AICN has already gotten a sneak peak. Tim Bisley compares the movie to The Godfather Part 2 and hints that Heath Ledger’s performance might be worthy of the best supporting Oscar. Here are a couple spoiler free highlights that I found interesting:

“The film feels more like a crime drama in a grand city scape than a typical comic book movie. It feels like Heat except Batman is Al Pacino and The Joker is Robert De Niro and just like in that film we have a great scene between Heath Ledger and Christian Bale across a table. There is also an element of a Greek Tragedy.. There is a vast sense of morality at play within the film.”

“The Joker is almost more of a terrorist than criminal. He is not motivated by money. He wants to see people suffer.”

“The run time is two and a half hours. It doesn’t feel that long as there is so much going on within the film.”